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Sunday, May 22, 2011

Denying Human Nature Is A Terrible Thing

This AP news story reports on a Dutch priest who turns out to be a board member of "Martijn," a Dutch pedophilia advocacy group. No surprise: a Catholic priest later in trouble for sexually abusing boys was one of the founders of the North American Man-Boy Love Association.

I understand the reasoning behind why the Catholic Church imposed the celibacy requirement back in the late eleventh century, but even if it made sense then, it certainly makes no sense now. Here's a very harsh but true statement: very, very few men can go their entire adult lives celibate without either severe temptations or giving in to those temptations. There are more women who can do so, but even this seems a bit unnatural. And what happens when you tell people to do something unnatural for decades on end? Does it surprise anyone that the net effect is to warp a person's sexuality in really ugly ways?

2 comments:

Clayton, you have cause and effect backwards. The vow of celibacy gives those with homosexual and pedophilic tendencies social cover and allows them access to others of their kind as well as access to the objects of their desire. The warped sexuality already exists, the priesthood (and the nunnery) attract those who need it in order to cover their own warped sexuality. The vow does not distort them, they distort the vow.

I've noticed most of the pedophilic priests tend to be elderly and many of the incidents occurred some time ago. Maybe perverts used to join the priesthood but no longer bother doing so.

There is a good reason for the Roman Catholic Church to keep clerical celibacy. Under normal circumstances, a large organization will drift left. That shouldn't surprise anybody. A large, powerful, and prestigious organization is a much bigger prize to people who want to tell others what to do than people who don't.

The Catholic Church has been one of the few exceptions to that rule. I suspect that's largely due to clerical celibacy. In eras when clerical celibacy is taken seriously, it will keep out those more interested in the office than in the duties of the office. (In eras when clerical celibacy was ignored, e.g., the Renaissance, the Catholic Church was more inclined to abuse its power.)